Should Britain worry about immigration from Romania and Bulgaria?
Summary
Immigration is currently an important political issue.
Later in 2013, Romanian and Bulgarian citizens will be free to travel to all EU countries.
Many commentators and politicians are concerned that large numbers will come to Britain, as happened with Poles after they were given the right to work here.
Transmitted 21 January 2013. Posted 22 February 2013. Updated 29 May 2022
On 21 January 2013 I took part in a panel discussion on the Islam Channel, on their Politics & Media show.
The presenter was John Rees and the participants were:
Alice Sachrajda, Research Fellow, Institute for Public Policy Research
Awale Olad, Public Affairs Officer, the Migrants' Rights Network
Robert Oulds, Director, The Bruges Group (on the telephone line)
The subject of the entire 24 minute discussion was what would it would mean for Britain when Romanians and Bulgarians became free to move to Britain.
I took the opportunity to explain why the EU's rules regarding the free movement of labour benefit all European citizens, including ours. I also reminded people not to swallow the "lump of work" fallacy, which implies there is a fixed amount of work in the economy, so if immigrants take jobs, there are less jobs for everyone else.
You can watch the programme below.
Video
The Disqus comments facility below allows you to comment on this page. Please respect others when commenting.
You can login using any of your Twitter, Facebook, Google+ or Disqus identities.
Even if you are not registered on any of these, you can still post a comment.